It has been a perfect April day: may the Lord be praised!
Our Rector is taking a short break after the pressure of Lent and Easter, boating on the Shannon I believe. I'm delighted that she and her husband are having some lovely weather for it, and pray she will return refreshed. I led Morning Prayer for Low Sunday in Templederry and Nenagh in her absence - so named, I discovered on Wikipedia, not because it's a low point after the excitement of Easter, but because the ancient Latin canticle once set for the day began Laudes Salvatori: praises to the Saviour.
The drive over to Templederry was gorgeous, primroses in every ditch, a rabbit scampering across the road in front of me, and the first swallows I've seen this year whirling like dervishes in front of the church - they were flying in and out of the barn opposite, where they must be nest-building. If you're interested in the sermon (which you're probably not, but I put all of them on the web just in case someone is), you can find it here.
When I got home, after a bite of lunch and a beer, it was out into the garden, trying to ignore the looming deadline for the course I'm taking.
I dug compost into Susanna's raised beds and raked them, ready for her to plant up, and dug up a couple of dozen strawberry runners from under the bush-fruit for her to make a new strawberry bed. She has planted them in holes cut in black weed-supressant fabric, which she plans to cover with bark mulch. I queried this, because I think it will be difficult to cultivate in future years. I should have held my tongue - they are after all her raised beds, and as she explained she has much more experience growing strawberries in New England than I have!
I also pruned some of the nurse-trees in the wilderness shelter-belt, to give the special pets room to develop. As I did so, the first Orange Tip butterfly of the season flew purposively up the path, had a little set-to with the first Speckled Wood, and retreated.
Now I've come back in, from my window I can see my neighbour's field of spring barley, so recently planted, shading green as the seeds sprout. And a pair of wood-pigeons on an ash branch are billing and cooing, like newly-weds on honeymoon.
Summer is on the way - Praises to the Saviour!
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Thank you, the 'Low Sunday' name origin was useful as I have to say I didn't know about it (but probably should have)! We saw a couple of swallows yesterday evening flying over the garden. It's great to see them back - I hope for their sakes as well as ours we get a good summer this year.
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